The Queen Mother and Her Bee
by gallifreyburning
Summary: Aleksa Jones and Stinger Apini get their happily ever after.


Everything starts out innocuously enough, with Stinger volunteering to act as honor guard for Queen Mother Aleksa Jones, during her trips back and forth to Earth. Jupiter regularly shuttles between home and her other properties; Aleksa comes along, because she's an invaluable source of advice, and because an an advanced degree in mathematics is indispensible in managing an intergalactic empire. She also returns to Earth more often than her daughter, sometimes weekly.

Jupiter doesn't ask for them, but her Keepers provide mission logs of her mother's trips, because they are bred to monitor and catalogue everything. Aleksa begins with a simple visit to Chicago, and then her journeys with Stinger grow more exotic and far-flung – Tokyo, Morocco, Patagonia, and Paris.

Jupiter doesn't think much of it, she's simply glad her mother is enjoying her travels. She didn't want the reports in the first place; she stops looking at them. She focuses on her own business, days spent wrangling her space empire and nights spent wrangling Caine.

At a diplomatic negotiation to replace RegeneX with a humanely engineered alternative, Jupiter's walking through a palace on a planet on the other side of the galaxy. Caine's by her side, and Stinger leads the rest of her Legion guard, as usual. Jupiter swears she hears Stinger murmuring something in Russian, repeating it over again like he's practicing or memorizing. Her translator implant isn't changing the words, either; Stinger is actually saying "You are a miracle, more beautiful than every star in the sky" in her family's native language.

When the diplomatic meeting breaks for the day, Jupiter glances over her mother's travel logs. On her last trip to Earth, Aleksa took Stinger to St Petersburg. They walked together along the Neva River.

Jupiter starts paying closer attention, and what's going on between them is so obvious that everyone besides Jupiter must already know. When Jupiter has to entertain other Entitled and Aleksa dresses for formal space dinner, the diaphonous train of her gown gets caught up around her feet. Before android attendants can move to help, Stinger's already down on one knee to untangle her. Aleksa smiles at the crown of his head, eyes soft and fond as she regards him.

Later, when they're alone, Jupiter asks her mother about it. Aleksa blushes and only answers with her own question: "I've been meaning to ask, does Caine have other dog parts, like a tail?"

Jupiter backpedals in panic. She's had literal nightmares about this scenario, being forced into an alien-sex talk with her mother, discussing exactly what's in Caine's trousers.

"Mama, oh my god – no, he doesn't have a tail. Just the ears."

"Hmm," Aleksa replies, tapping her chin thoughtfully. To Jupiter's inifinite relief, her mother shifts the conversation over to asset management, which stocks to buy in the Orus Exchange in order to keep Jupiter's market share strong.

If Stinger has an actual insect stinger, Jupiter definitely doesn't want to know.

Before long, Stinger requests a formal audience with Jupiter. He appears in Legion dress uniform, and before she can give him her usual hug, Stinger executes a low bow, breathless with nerves. Amidst copious acknowledgement of how unworthy he is to aim so high, he asks permission to pay court to Jupiter's mother.

A mortified Aleksa comes skidding into the room a second later to yank Stinger off his knees. "I told you, my daughter is not Stalin, she does not run a police state. Stand up! You do not need to ask anyone except me for permission."

Caine's snort of laughter is so soft, only Jupiter hears it. Stinger glances at her, his head still held deferentially low.

"You heard the woman," Jupiter replies with a grin and a shrug, gesturing toward her mother. "She's in charge."

And that's how Aleksa Jones found her own badass splice boyfriend.

How Aunt Nino found the android love of her life is another story entirely.

But the saga of how Kiza Apini fell in love with Lady Savenna, second Primary of the House of Merkesh - that's an opera in three acts.


End file.
